Viral video shows strangers finding a 9-month-old baby in the middle of a busy road

A baby was rescued after strangers found the 9-month-old crawling on a busy road in upstate New York. Video of the incident, which was shared to Facebook by user Rn Jay, shows a good samaritan picking the baby up while others are heard talking about how to handle the situation. The child has since been removed from his mother’s care.

In the footage, the baby can be heard crying and people getting out of their cars in Utica to help. The group quickly decides it’s best to call emergency services. The man who took the video then turns the camera on himself and asked, “That’s what people do now — leave their kids in the street?”

Just before the video ends, a woman can be heard in the background saying “that’s my baby, that’s my baby”.

The Utica Police Department later released a statement saying they had charged the baby’s mother, Ledrika E. Ford, 27, for child endangerment. All four of Ford’s children have since been removed from her care.

Ford told police she and a relative were not sure how the baby ended up on the street. Ford said the child was secured in the rear seat of a vehicle that she was in when they left a location on Bleecker Street. However, shortly after Ford looked to the back seat and found that the child was not there.

The pair then say they immediately returned to the area where they last saw the child, finding the baby with the group of strangers.

Police say they began investigating the incident after they were made aware of the Facebook video. “The Utica Police Department would like to thank the citizens in the video who attended to the child showing their caring and compassionate spirit of the City of Utica,” cops wrote on their Facebook page.